Our Newest Purgatorian
by iamthegeneralissimo
Summary: Cadet Haught gets assigned to Purgatory as part of her training at the academy. Wynonna and Nedley are a little too observant for her liking. Wayhaught PWP.


Nicole watches as the woman picks out peaches from the fake wooden barrel, bundled up in an oversized cable-knit sweater. Her eyes follow as the woman surveys the rest of the produce section, clicks her tongue and makes her way over to the deli. She smiles and waves at the person behind the counter before surrendering her ticket.

'How are you, Waverly?' They chat like old friends and exchange air kisses, and she is captivated by a throaty laugh. Nicole barely registers the condensation of the beer bottle seeping into her khakis as she tries to pick her jaw up off the floor.

_Waverly_. She mouths the name as she debates the merits of peanut butter brands, testing it on her tongue and committing it to memory. _Waverly. Waverly. Waverly._

A broad young man in flannel approaches the woman-called-Waverly and swoops in for a kiss. 'Champ!' she giggles. Kisses him back.

Nicole loads her groceries onto the conveyer belt. Tinned coffee. Frozen dinners. A box of tampons. Beer. The cashier bids her a good day and watches her stalk off, muttering darkly about 'straight girls'.

* * *

Sheriff Randy Nedley shows her to her desk, nodding to everyone in the small office and introducing her as a hotshot cadet from the big city. She shakes all of their hands and tries her best to be warm, but firm, mouth drier than she'd like.

'It's a small department,' drawls Nedley, after making their way back to his cubicle and settling in behind his own desk. 'And a small town. Shouldn't take you too long to learn the ropes.' He eyes her over the top of her transcripts and takes a sip of coffee from a god-awful brown mug. _Dad_, she reads, and spies a photo on the desk behind, of him and a young girl wearing a party hat, an older woman gazing adoringly off to the side.

'Purgatory is an... interesting town. I think you'll do well here.' He staples some forms together, presses the Purgatory Sheriff Department seal.

'I won't let you down, sir,' she says, hands resting on her belt buckle. _Where was the damn water fountain?_

'Didn't think so. Dismissed.'

When she makes a show of attacking the small mountain of paperwork before her with the requisite amount of zeal, and when she's absolutely sure everyone's gone home for the day, she lets her fingers map letters across the keyboard.

W-A-V-E-R-L-Y...

* * *

She spends time with Officer Velasquez who walks her through the front desk procedures and the department filing system when she hears a woman's voice carrying from down the hallway, its owner's body materializing before her, followed closely behind by Nedley.

'Top of the mornin' to you, Officer—' the brunette squints at her temporary name tag before emitting a bark of a laugh. '—Officer Haught!' She sizes her up and tries for a hi-five. 'Hell yeah, you are.' Nicole narrows her eyes and hedges on what she hopes is a steely enough 'ma'am'.

'Whatever.' The woman snorts before spinning around to face Nedley. 'This your new recruit, boss? She's definitely Purgatory material if she can stare the town nutjob down.'

'_Cadet_ Haught is finishing up her final term at the police academy and is considering taking up a position — Miss Earp, surely you know you cannot just shoot at the tires of cars owned by people who displease you?' Nedley sighs.

'Piss off, Nedley, Tucker's always been an asshole and you know it. I don't know why his face started bleeding either. There's probably a cream for that.'

Nicole starts. 'Wait, Earp like Waverly Earp?' The woman stares at her blankly. 'I'm Wynonna. Waverly's my — hey, you've met my baby sis?'

'I, uh — no.' Wynonna and Nedley wait for an explanation but she's not about to admit to misuse of department resources, even if it was just a quick search… yes, a 'quick' search. She drops her gaze back down to the files in front of her and mumbles, 'Not officially anyway.'

'Huh,' is all Wynonna says.

* * *

Purgatory is a small town, she discovers all too quickly, but a charming one nonetheless. She can walk down all of main street and back in less than ten minutes, and there's only one bar in town. There's also a pharmacy with a lippy part-timer. A general store with quaint knick-knacks and one too many Purgatory themed souvenirs given the only tourists they get are those driving through on their way to bigger towns. _Their loss_, she shrugs as she writes out parking tickets.

The trailer park at the edge of town makes her hair stand on end, but she does her best to brush it off because she's too enamored by the white picket fences and manicured lawns and Winnebagos in every other driveway, and she likes that no matter what part of part of town she's in she feels like she can just reach out and touch the tip of the Rockies.

When she finishes her shift, there's a flyer clipped under her windshield wiper advertising bingo at the civic centre on Wednesday and trivia night the following Thursday, to which she goes mostly in the hopes someone might finally trump her if there's a Golden Girls category.

* * *

Three weeks later and her weapons assessment session carries on well into the early evening so she decide to blow off some steam at the town's drive-in theatre. The admissions girl greets her with a 'hey, hon' and a toothy smile she can't help but return. There are less than ten cars in the lot and she spots Waverly Earp in a red Jeep before the trailers even start. Her smile fades. She's entwined in Champ, or Champ's entwined in her, and it's just a little bothersome how she can't tell which appendage belongs to whom.

'Yo, cadet,' calls a familiar voice from the cab of a rusty pickup directly behind her. _Good lord_ — for there was Wynonna Earp, propped up against a small mountain of blankets and pillows with — were those bullet holes? — holding out a bottle of clear liquor. 'Want some?' A man's scruffy face pops up next to her, grinning the shittiest shit-eating grin and waggling his eyebrows.

Nicole shoots a quick look at Champ, now with his face buried in Waverly's neck, then back at Wynonna. She reaches for the bottle. 'Naughty Haughty!' Wynonna crows before going for gold in tonsil hockey.

Nicole takes a healthy swig and tries her best to keep her eyes trained on the stupid Western, of all things.

* * *

She's pulled over on the side of the highway, all of Queen Elizabeth II stretched out in front of her.

A bay draught horse meanders up to the fence, chewing cud. He stares at her with big, brown, mournful eyes and she thinks back to when she's fifteen and visiting her aunt's apple orchard when school's out, losing herself amongst rows of slender trunks picking apple after apple, forearms sticky with juice and sap. After dinner her uncle lets her sip the cider he's been brewing in the basement, and it makes her tongue tingle and her cheeks warm, and she can't help but giggle when he teases, 'Now there'll be no more of this rule-breaking when you become a cop, hear?'

They ask her about school and the track team she's just joined and she gives them all the right answers, but what she really wants to tell them is how sitting behind Emily Anderson in third period biology makes her head swim. She wants to be able to talk to them about _that_ instead of fake-gushing about Stevie Miller who's always leaving notes in her locker stapled to packets of Skittles, but she decides against it because they know too much about her hopes and dreams already.

* * *

Nicole reaches for a pack of mints in the glovebox, tries to smooth her hair under her department-issued Stetson but stops when Nedley catches her eye in the rearview mirror.

She opens the door and steps foot onto the Earp homestead, boots crunching on a thin layer of snow. There's Wynonna on the front porch, raising a mug of god-knows-what by way of greeting. She's in a jovial mood as they take her statement about a recent incident involving some hooligans from the trailer park.

'And they what, just up and ran?' Nedley presses as she polishes the ludicrously long barrel of her gun, mother-of-pearl grip catching the sun.

'I mean they took Waverly hostage for a bit and tried to hang her but she's totally fine — yessir, Sheriff Nedley,' she shuts one eye and aims down the sights before adding, 'Sir.'

'Where is Waverly? Does she know we're here to take her statement too?' She tries and fails to temper the eagerness in her voice. Nedley informs her Waverly's made an appointment to drop by the station after her shift at Shorty's.

'Oh, well that's… a shame.' A shame that she clocks off in less than half an hour and won't be there to take it herself.

'Tell me what you want, what you really really want, Ginger Spice.' Wynonna sings as she and Nedley make their way back to the cruiser.

* * *

She stares at a spot behind Officer Velasquez's head, to where Waverly is pouring pint after pint and skimming beer foam like it's the best job in the world. Velasquez cracks a joke and the other officers laugh but she can't hear them because she's too busy trying to eavesdrop on the older men leaning on the polished slab of walnut that makes up the bar. They're gruff and they're surly, with the beards and leather vests to match, and they bark their orders at Shorty who barks right back at them, but change tack so quickly in Waverly's presence it gives her whiplash.

She's everyone's younger sister, unspoiled, unsullied by the whispers attached to the infamous surname. Nicole knows the entire town gossips because there's little else to do and she can't help but listen, privy to answers to questions she never would have had the courage to ask otherwise. So she understands why Wynonna falls off her barstool twice in less than a minute, and she really doesn't blame her at all.

Nicole stares openly at Waverly, transfixed by what she's convinced is some form of magic. She recalls partying one night just after starting at the academy and leaning in to kiss a cadet two years her senior. She tastes stale beer and secondhand smoke and they whisper and giggle and fumble drunkenly in the dark before she leaves the next morning, discarded clothes and feelings gathered close to her chest. _Call me_, the girl smiles, sleep clinging to her voice, but Nicole never does because she can hear her boyfriend's footsteps down the hall.

And days later when she's sunning herself on the quad, buried deep in a criminal psych textbook while taking notes, she sees the two of them kissing. She's not surprised when fat droplets smudge her notes, so in the same breath she uses to curse herself for never having learned to ask for what she wants, she tells herself she'll buy better pens when her next paycheck comes around.

Nicole cheers up somewhat when she thinks of Emily Anderson and the metallic gel-tips she uses to write her number down in Nicole's yearbook between junior and senior year.

'Take a picture, cadet,' the older Earp quips in her ear, whose sudden appearance brings breath laced heavy with cheap bourbon. 'It'll last longer.'

* * *

She's on patrol with Nedley at the high school football game. Nedley who's reminiscing about his own days at the academy. 'Back then, no one really cared about anyone else. You just had to be the toughest and hope you got all the right promotions without having to get beat by too many perps.'

He looks over at her when she doesn't respond because she's too busy scanning the bleachers, foam fingers and blue war paint obscuring her vision. 'I think you could do really well here, Haught. Purgatory needs an more people like you. Dedicated. Hardworking. Hell, _I _need someone like you. These folks need looking after when I'm gone.' He tips a box of crackerjack into his palm before offering the rest to her.

She breaks her gaze and reaches for it. She's decided she likes Nedley. Nedley who barely cracks a smile save for that time old Mrs Adler gives him a kiss on the cheek for helping her cross the road. Nedley who she's convinced slips on his mask with his holster every morning before kissing his wife goodbye. Nedley who is so very different from her commanding officers at the academy. Commanding officers who gave everyone a hard time just because they could. So she studies harder than what they demand, pushes herself physically, more than they ever expect. And here she was, at the top of her cohort, everyone else left behind eating her dust.

And there _she_ is. Making her way down the bleachers to greet the cheerleaders and for a moment it's a cacophony of exposed midriffs and pom-poms and giggles. Nicole stares, despite herself, at the skin above Waverly's knee. Tight leather skirt on a cool fall night. _Sweet Jesus._ She bites her lip.

* * *

Nicole checks out a few books from the local library. There's daguerreotype portraits of early settlers on the brick walls and the entire town lies immortalized as a diorama by the entrance. She's cradling _Purgatory: A History_, _Ghost River Heritage Listings_ and a couple back issues of _Guns and Ammo_ in her arms when she spots Waverly with her legs curled up in a chair in front of a computer bay, tapping a pen tip to her temple. She's watching a tiny figure on the screen pace before a blackboard in a lecture hall, her brow furrowed, mouthing words and letting her hand fly across her notebook.

Nicole's peering through the stacks trying not to look like a total creep because she's really just here for some light bedtime reading material, and not dwelling on the thought of unravelling Waverly's braid to try and identify what shampoo she uses.

'Didn't know you were so into —' Wynonna stage whispers into her ear as Nicole's things fall to the floor. '— reading.'

'Bleargh,' Wynonna reaches for _Heritage Listings_ and makes fake retching noises around the stick of red liquorice in her mouth. 'You're not allowed to eat in the library!' Nicole splutters, impressed all the same.

'So write me a ticket, Haught-stuff,' Wynonna winks and walks over to where Waverly is sitting and fakes a headlock before kissing the top of her head.

* * *

Her sneakers pound pavement until she finds herself back at the precinct parking lot. Sheriff Nedley's leaning against his squad car munching on a bearclaw, warming his hands on a cup of coffee. He jerks his thumb towards the passenger seat where a paper bag sits next to a steaming paper cup. 'Mighty kind of you, sir,' she says as she works on re-introducing oxygen into her lungs.

'Thought any more about my offer?' He starts walking towards the park they share with city hall. They sit on either side of a cold bench and she nods as they watch passers by, says she's seriously considering it. Says bright city lights never held sway over her anyway because Nicole's all prairie and open sky and she'll take simple country folk over damn city slickers any day.

But in her head. What she actually says out loud while massaging her left quad is, 'I think I could make a life here, sir.'

She wishes she could say it loud enough for Waverly Earp to hear, but she's just out of reach, reclined on a picnic blanket and tossing cashews into her mouth by the handful.

* * *

It doesn't take long before she finishes her cadetship and briefly entertains the idea of skipping her graduation ceremony entirely. It takes even less time to pack up her cramped apartment in the city and move into a new one just a block away from Shorty's. She flattens the last of the cardboard boxes and disposes of them while pasta boils in the kitchen.

'It's not stalking. The rates were just really good,' she whispers to no one in particular, halfway through a bottle of red wine. 'And the lease terms were more than favorable.' Calamity Jane purrs in reassurance and butts her head against Nicole's hand when she makes her way over to the window sill.

They both watch as Champ struts up the sidewalk and smooths his hair back before throwing the doors to Shorty's open.

* * *

Nicole smiles to herself when she wakes up the next morning because she's up a little earlier than normal for her first shift as a deputized officer. She wonders if she'll be called out to break up fights at Shorty's when she catches herself pouring kitty kibble into her bowl instead of cereal.

Calamity Jane responds with a little chirp of a meow.

The navy polyester blend itches a little as she pulls it on and Nicole knows no amount of time or cycles in the wash will ever make it feel truly comfortable. But it makes her feel powerful, invincible. Like she's made of tougher stuff than flesh and bone. She runs a finger over the department's insignia and triple checks her holster, then twists a little in the mirror...

Khaki's never been her color but they are none too shabby, she concedes, smiling.

The rest of the day is mundane, filled with plenty of paperwork and the occasional callout but she doesn't care. She's enjoying the smell of the cold in the air and as Nedley starts the engine she places bags of freshly baked cookies on the dash, both of which were thrust into her hands on two out of their three house calls.

They're nearly at the station when she fiddles with the brim of the Stetson, sitting atop a thick sheaf of files on her lap. 'Can you drop me off there, sir?' Nicole gestures to Shorty's as she jams the hat onto her head. 'There's something I'd like to do first and home's just around the corner.'

Nedley spots Waverly Earp unlocking the heavy wooden doors.

He grunts in assent.


End file.
